In this session, Ken Ham will examine the biblical account of Noah, which is a reminder that: God brings salvation in times of judgement, and we are to faithfully teach the word of God to the coming generations.

It was great to speak to many of you in the first session and we talked about the importance of the book of Genesis. For those that were here, you probably got the impression that it's important to take Genesis' literal history. I hope you got that impression. For those who have never heard me before, yes, I do have an Aussie accent. Or I hope I have, I don't want to speak like any of you.

But people tell me in America that they say, we love the Australian accent, so it doesn't matter what you say, we just love to hear you saying it, so I can say whatever and get away with it. Well in this session, I wanted to talk to you about, it's the Ark Project and why we built that and just to understand some what's behind it from God's Word. Answering Genesis and Apologetics Ministry and so the Creation Museum was opened in 2007. We've had three million people come through the Creation Museum in just over nine years. And it's a whole walk through the Bible with animatronic dinosaurs, life-sized exhibits, plantarians, special effects, theater, paintings, all sorts of things.

It's a world class facility, have people come from all over the world. But it's also an apologetics facility because we're teaching the Bible as real history and the doctrines, the gospel based in that history and then we're equipping people with answers to defend the Christian faith against the secular attacks of our day that would undermine the authority of God's Word and we're also challenging non-Christians concerning the truth of God's Word and the Gospel. And the Arc Project is similar to that too, except it's different. And a couple of verses of scripture that I get inspired about when reading about Noah. Genesis 6.22, Thus Noah did according to all that God commanded him, so he did.

What a faithful man he was. You think about the whole world had rebelled, only his family went on board that arc and yet he stood there and did all that God commanded him to do. I can't imagine the scoffing and the mocking and the ridicule. We think we get scoffing and mocking and ridicule today. It must be nothing compared to what happened with Noah.

And yet he faithfully built that ark. And I look at that and say, if Noah can do that in a world of rebellion, we can do things for the Lord we can do big things for the Lord and of course we read about Noah in Hebrews 11 by faith Noah being divinely warned of things not yet seen move with godly fear prepared an ark for the saving of his household by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. And what a great man that Noah was. Well the Ministry of Answers in Genesis opened the Creation Museum in 2007 and then we opened the ark, life-size ark, biggest timber frame structure in the world, built to the specifications in the Bible and it's interesting, It's interesting the questions we get from the media and from the secular world. You know, people say to us, did you use the tools Noah used?

Have you got a list of those, by the way? Can you tell me a list of the tools? Well, Noah couldn't have built a ship like that. See, people have this evolutionary view of history. Even many Christians have this evolutionary view of history.

Well, Noah couldn't have built a great big wooden ship. And so why not? Well, I mean, he wouldn't have known how to... You know within a few generations of Adam, there were workers of bronze and iron and making musical instruments. Think about that for a moment.

Genesis 5-1 says this is the book of the generations of Adam. We got this idea, Adam wouldn't have been able to write and Noah couldn't have written. It's one of the reasons why at the Ark Encounter, one of the exhibits, we have Noah's library and we have all these scrolls in there and we're suggesting to the people that there was history recorded and handed down to Noah, maybe some of that got handed down to Moses and compiled the book of Genesis. And we've also got exhibits talking about ancient man. We don't even know how they built some of those structures in South America.

Some of those stone blocks are so heavy we don't know how they lifted them. We don't know how they carved them so precisely and then we say Noah couldn't have built a great big ship. We didn't even know how some of the people in relatively modern times built some of these structures or even the Egyptian pyramids are still perplexing to people. And then, oh, the question I was asked by the media over and over again. Will it float?

My answer, of course not. We didn't build it to float. We don't need to. Read your Bible. There's never going to be another global flood.

And you know there are atheists that say, well we'd be more impressed if you built it to float to show a wooden ship of that size could float. They don't even understand that in history people built bigger wooden ships than this that floated. See, they don't even, you know what it shows you, they're willfully ignorant. They just don't want to believe God's word. It was actually designed as a ship, a true wooden ship.

It's a true timber frame structure, but built as a building for tourists. And it's anchored to three big towers that house the elevators and the exit stairs and also the restrooms, male and female restrooms. Just important to emphasise that these days. So why do we do this? You know when you look at America, America has the largest number of churches, Christian colleges, Christian resource, Christian media in the world, but from a worldview perspective it's becoming less Christian every day.

Then again, so is the whole Western world. It's becoming more secularized and less Christian every day. One of the verses of scripture I believe that aptly describes our culture today is in Judges 21-25. When there was no king in Israel, everyone did what is right in his own eyes. When you have generations of people that no longer build their thinking on God's Word, then if there's no absolute authority, ultimately marriage is whatever you want to make it to be, everyone does what is right in his own eyes, that's what's happening increasingly in our culture because we've abandoned the authority of the Word of God.

It's interesting as you look at the political situation now and people are looking at politics to solve all their problems. You see, God's teaching us something. Politics, that's not the solution. I'm not saying it's not important to vote and all the rest of it, but that's not the solution. America needs a spiritual solution.

And I don't see any of the media talking about that, they don't want to talk about that, but that's the problem, because America is throwing God out, throwing God out of the public schools, throwing God out of the culture, nativity scenes, crosses, ten commandments thrown out of public places, and so it goes on. In fact, more and more, you know, you read about Noah's day in Genesis 6.5, the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth and every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. I think today, you think things are bad today, I think this verse is saying things in Noah's day it was much worse. We think, we look at our world today, we look at our culture today and look at the gay marriage issue and the abortion issue you know 55 million children murdered in their mothers womb since Roe vs Wade and euthanasia is now starting to come in as it is in Europe, you're starting to see that in America and we think wow it's like the days of Noah, I think the days of Noah were so much worse and yet Noah built that ark.

Because there are still millions of Christians in this nation, There are millions of Christians around the world. In Noah's day there was only eight people that went on that ark. You stand back and think about that. Wow! He can stand and do what God told him to do in a world like that.

What's wrong with us? Why can't we stand up in our culture? You know one of the problems in this culture, Christians are too silent. Need to stand up for what we believe. And one of the reasons, as I said in the first session, is because when we haven't been taught the Bible as a book of history and taught the first 11 chapters, we don't have a foundation for our world view to know how to deal with racism and marriage and all these other issues.

And we see moral relativism pervading the culture. I talked about the fact in the first session that we did the research in 2009 why two thirds of young people are walking away from the church with very few returning and it really came down to the fact that they weren't taught apologetics, they weren't taught how to defend their faith. And in fact when we did that research on the 20s generation that no longer go to church, it's interesting. At what age did you begin to question contents in the Bible? You notice something that 40% of them were questioning the Bible by the end of middle school, another 45% by the end of high school were having doubts, people, here's the problem, our kids are starting to have doubts at a young age because of what's being taught in the schools, what's being taught through the television and so on, and we're not teaching them how to answer those attacks that are causing them to doubt and not believe the Word of God.

I said, what tends to happen is, what we tend to do in many of our churches, we teach Bible stories. You know what I mean by Bible stories? Jonah the Great, First feeding 5, 000, Paul's ministry, Jonah, Jesus on the cross, Noah and the ark, and people say, what's wrong with that? Well, it's the way we teach them. You know, we've even got to think about this.

Do you know that today's generations actually speak a different language? They do. You know the millennials speak a different language? If the church doesn't wake up to that, we're not gonna minister to them, we're not gonna reach them. For instance, generations ago, when you went to the public schools and said God, is it not true?

Most teachers, students would think of the God of the Bible. But you go to the public schools today and say God and they say which God? You mean a Hindu concept of God, a Buddhist concept of God? You mean a Muslim God? I mean which God are you talking about?

You see the word God doesn't mean what it used to mean to our generations to go. It's the same for the word story. I mean there are many other examples we could give. Story used to mean history. We talk about a Bible story, you know it was true.

But you tell me, what does the word story mean in our modern vernacular, what does it mean? Fable, you know, fiction. And yet we're still in our churches, even in our homes. Kids, let's have a Bible story. See, because of the change in our culture, I believe we should be saying, I want to read you this record of history.

Let's look at this Bible account here. Try to say account and record rather than story because the word story has come to mean fiction. And here's the problem. We have generations of our kids that go to Sunday school and they have this fluff and stuff Sunday school material that teaches them all these Bible stories. Eighty-five to ninety percent of kids from church homes go to public schools where, oh, they're taught real stuff about the Grand Canyon and about the universe and all this real stuff.

We learn real stuff at school. What happens at home and church? We get stories. Most churches and most Christian homes aren't teaching apologetics, we're not saying, hey I know the questions today that are going to be asked, how did Noah get the animals and the ark, how did Noah get the Bible, where did God come from, how did Noah get God anyway, where did the races of people come from, What about dinosaurs, carbon dating, the things we talked about in the first session? Then we ask those questions, I need to make sure I'm teaching them to be able to answer those questions.

Instead, what do we do? Let's have a Bible story. Most of our Sunday School material is all this Bible story. Who's teaching apologetics? The public schools and the secular media and the secular universities.

Think about it. The secular world is out there saying here's the evidence the Bible is not true, here's the evidence for millions years, here's the evidence you came from ape men, Here's the evidence for the Big Bang. Here's the evidence for evolution. What do we do in our homes and churches? Let's have a story.

See we're not teaching them apologetics and we're not teaching the Bible as a book of history. It's one of the reasons that we wanted to build the creation museum and the arc, people, the church is not impacting the culture like it did in the past. We know that, we see the secularization of our culture and we have generations of young people who no longer believe the Bible can be trusted as a book of history because of what they've been taught about so-called science and so on. And so we're saying to ourselves, how can we impact the culture in a way that they're going to take notice? And the Lord placed a burden on my heart, even back in my Australia days, 40 odd years ago, about why can't we build a creation museum?

Why can't we do that? In fact, you know who inspired me for all of that? It was really my father. My father was like Nehemiah. You know what it says about Nehemiah?

And he was angry. It was a righteous anger. Why doesn't somebody do something about this? Why don't we build the wall? Why don't we do something about this?

My father was like that. You know, it's interesting. In church, you get a devotional booklet handed out by some organization. You see it talks about Noah's flood as a local event. My father would go ballistic.

He'd stand up and say, we can't hand this out, this is undermining the authority of the word of God. You know what a lot of the rest of the people in church said? It doesn't matter. I'm glad my father was like Nehemiah. And when I taught school and students said, sir, how can you believe the Bible when we know it's not true because of what our textbooks say about evolution of millions of years and then took them to museums at all from an evolutionary perspective.

I'm thinking, why doesn't somebody do something about this? Why can't we build a creation museum? And when we were building the Creation Museum in 2004, we sat down and said, what are we going to do next? I mean the Creation Museum is going to reach people and teach them, but how do we reach more people of the gospel? I had an idea, well why don't we build an ark?

Because over the years one of the most asked questions, How could Noah fit the animals on the ark? How could he look after them? How could that be true? And you know what I've noticed? The majority of the Christian children's books in our Christian bookstores have Noah's ark as an overloaded bathtub with giraffe sticking out the chimney about to sink at any moment, teaching the kids it was only a fable.

And we have them on many of the walls of our kindergartens and churches. I tell you, when I go to those churches and I see these bathtub arcs, I get this urge to be a graffiti expert. I do. I have to say, Lord, please do not let me draw and use my Sharpie to cross it all out. I want to start a movement that people will go and get rid of.

I remember one church I was at and they said, but Mrs. Brown put that there. And I said, well Mrs. Brown was wrong. She probably didn't like me.

Hey you know what, as a ministry we recognize that God's Word has come under incredible attack in this era of history, particularly in Genesis 1 to 11, and it's led to doubt and disbelief through the whole of Scripture. And you know a passage from Scripture that inspired me in regard to this, in regard to our whole ministry, you see, when we read the passage from Joshua about the twelve stones, you know that they crossed the Jordan River. As they crossed the Jordan River, as a miracle of the Lord, just like they crossed the Red Sea as a miracle from the Lord. And then, what do we read? Take for yourselves 12 stones from here, out of the midst of Jordan.

12 stones. What do these stones mean? That they may be a sign among you, A memorial to the children of Israel forever. The twelve stones are to remind the next generation what God did. Because we read, when your children ask their fathers in time to come, what are these stones, let your children know.

Stop right there for a moment. These twelve stones are to stand as a memorial so when your children say, what are those stones all about? It will remind you to never forget to pass on that spiritual legacy to the next generation. Make sure that you teach the children. Make sure that you raise up a godly generation who know what they believe, know why they believe what they do.

And not only is it to stand as a reminder for you to teach your children as God commanded. You read Psalm 78, what do you read? Fathers, teach your children so they'll not forget to teach their children. Fathers, teach your children so they'll not forget to teach their children. And that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the Lord and to be a witness to the whole world.

You're there to raise up godly generation and to be a witness to the world. You know one of the saddest passages in scripture is when we go on and we read that Joshua died and the elders that were with him died and then we read this about the children the next generation they did evil in the sight of the Lord and they followed other gods they served Baal they lost it in one generation It only takes one generation to lose a culture. People in this nation right now, we are on the precipice of catastrophic change. Because we have not raised up generations to stand boldly and unashamedly and uncompromising on God's Word. We have not taught generations how to answer the skeptical questions of this age and because we have not raised up generations like that, we handed generations over to the world, you trained them, that's okay, teach them fluff and stuff and just teach them the Bible stories.

Don't get me wrong, I mean those events in the Bible are true, but it's the way we've taught them and now we wonder why we have two thirds leaving the church, we have those in the church that are very secularised and people were losing the culture from a Christian perspective, it's no different to what happened to the Israelites, we're seeing this culture on the precipice of massive change right now. In fact, it's interesting when you read Psalm 78 it goes on and what do you read? The fathers did not teach their children as they should have. You know I think about our culture and I've got twelve stones here. Twelve stones with words on that a reminder of the Christian heritage of this nation.

I mean, it used to be that no one would argue about having Christ and Christmas basically. Marriage was considered a man and a woman. You had crosses and nativity scenes and ten commandments in public places, that wasn't a problem. You would never think about euthanasia in regard to the elderly or the infirmed. The Bible, creation, prayer was in public schools.

But you know what's even happening in this nation? Those twelve stones, if you like, are being demolished. And we see a whole new world view permeating the culture. A world view of moral relativism. That's one of the reasons why we've had such a burden, how can we impact the culture?

And you know what, the secularists have tried to close down people talking about the Bible. Think about it, they basically legislated to protect the teaching of evolution in school. You can't even, if you even talk about the Bible or prayer, they intimidate Christians so much, Christians have much more freedom than what they think they have, but the trouble is you have groups like the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the United for Separation of Church and State and they intimidate people and they threaten lawsuits and so people back off and you lose your freedoms. We even had a lawsuit over the issue of a tax incentive in Kentucky. Kentucky offered a tourism tax incentive for any tourist facility that would build in Kentucky on the sales tax you generate within your facility.

You can have a rebate on a percentage of that back each year for ten years according to what's approved and how much capital you invest. In other words, you bring this much economic impact into the state, we'll give you this much back from the money you generate. And we were approved for that and then the Governor was pressured by these groups, Freedom From Religion Foundation, Americans United, Separation Church and State, and the governor reversed what he said and wouldn't even let us participate in that, so we went to federal court on the basis of the First Amendment. And also, the state, when the governor's office wrote a letter, they said, you're going to teach people about Jesus, and you're going to employ Christians so you can't participate in the program. Wait a minute, so the Bourbon Distillery Museum and the Speedway and all these other places can participate in a tourism tax incentive because they fulfill the requirements.

We fulfill the requirements but we're Christian, we can't have it. You know what we said? If we keep losing our freedoms like this, where's America going to be? We need to stand up. We didn't do it for the money.

We said we believe we have to stand up and we pray God will honor that on the basis of the First Amendment, freedom of religion, free exercise of religion and you know we went to federal court and the judge ruled 75 pages conclusively in our favor and said this is about, this is not about government speech, this is about private speech and just because they're Christian, you have a program that you make available to anyone but then you say they're Christian, you can't have it, you can't do that. And not only that, it was interesting how the judge turned the state's own words back on them. You said they're religious, you said they're going to tell people about Jesus, they admit they are. Well, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 gives them an exemption as a religious organization to employ Christians and then what was interesting is we had an election for governor and the election for governor the man running against the one who was very liberal The polls said he was going to lose by 7% and he spoke against gay marriage, spoke against abortion, spoke up for the Arc Project, happens to be a chartered member of the Creation Museum, and he won by a landslide.

And so then, he didn't appeal the decision of the judge and so now it's ended as a permanent injunction. People we need to stand up for what we believe. Governor Bevin, people told him, you will lose this election if people know that you are against gay marriage and abortion and you stand up for the ark encounter, but God honoured him and he won the election. You know, we have to make an impact in the culture. Noah was a man who was willing to stand and build an ark in a world that it rebelled.

People, each one of us can be like Noah. We can do big things for the Lord. Young people, if we say, God, we're willing to go where you want me to go, willing to stand up for your word, I want to be someone you want me to be, he can use you for big things. When we opened the ark this year on July 7, we had the board lay twelve stones. Do you know why we lay twelve stones?

Well let me play you an excerpt from our opening ceremony and you'll hear me explaining the twelve stones. It's really time for Christians to do something of this size, of this quality, to give a message to the world we're presenting the message of God's Word to the world. Quite a number of years ago there was a man called Joshua. He led the people of Israel across the Jordan River and God told them to take 12 stones and to build a memorial as a reminder so that the coming generations would not forget who God is and to also be a reminder to the world. The Ark is to be a reminder.

We build it as a reminder. It's our 12 stones to remind the coming generations of the truth of God's Word. It's our way of presenting the truth of God's Word and the Gospel to the world. By the way, there were what, a hundred different media organizations, secular media organizations represented there. We have never hidden from them.

Do you know what the Ark's all about? It's presenting the Gospel, God's Word. And there are a lot of people who said if you are so open about that, you're not going to get people coming. And even some of the experts, so-called, who did the research before the ark was built in regard to the impact on tourism, told the government they're only going to get about 325, 000 people a year because if people know they're Christian and creationist, they're not going to come. It's not true.

People are hungry for the message of truth. And by the way, those 12 stones are still there and we're going to make them into a permanent exhibit but I love to see people who are taking photos of their family with the 12 stones to remind them that yes, yes, we're going to pass on the truth of God's Word to the next generation. You know it's interesting, people would say why Noah's Ark? It's known all over the world. There are flood legends all over the world.

People know about Noah's Ark. You say Creation Museum, they won't necessarily know what that is, but you say Ark, Noah's Ark? CBS, 60 Minutes, and Vanity Fair magazine, sure you'll get that. Back in November 2009, they conducted a web survey asking what archaeological discovery would people want to be made next. 43% said Noah's Ark, nothing else came close.

Here's what CBS put on their website, a secular organization. Noah's Ark continues to capture the imagination of the general public and this interest spans all social, religious and economic segments. The Ark and the Flood is one of the few historical events which are well known in the worldwide global circle. And that's true. And so we built Noah's Ark as a reminder, as a reminder to the world that God's word is true.

To help Christians remind the coming generations, their children, that God's Word is true and to challenge the world that the Bible's history is true, that's why the Gospel based on that history is true. So phase one was to build an ark and some other things outside it, In fact we have a whole park planned, eventually a wall city, a tower of Babel and a first century village and all sorts of other things. We just step out in faith to do this and we've never had the funds to do what we do and we don't even have the funds now to do what we do and still we do it. So, you've got to be responsible but there's responsibility and sovereignty. You don't jump off a cliff and say God save me but at the same time you've got to be prepared to step out in faith.

By faith, Noah. Think about that. And, you know, we said to people if we built the Ark would you support us and so we go and give the vision to people, that's our responsibility and we share with them our needs and then God burdens people to support. You know 43, 000 families supported the Ark project financially. The plans were incredibly complicated and the permits, I often wonder about Noah.

Did he have to have all the code regulations? This is one of the permits, that permit took us one and a half years to get and that was only with some help. Took one and a half years to fill out. It's one of the federal permits. And by the way, some interesting things in regard to that too and what happened and because of the policies of the current administration, the cost of that permit went up from a couple of hundred thousand dollars to 1.2 or 3 million.

They just put the cost up. I've often wondered, I wonder what permits Noah had to get? Actually did you know we've actually been able to obtain a copy of the permit Noah was given? It's true, It's been handed down for thousands of years. There it is.

Make for yourself an ark of go-forward. That's it. And Noah did according to all that God commanded him, so he did. And by faith he stepped out and he did it. Well the Lord led us to a property on interstate 75.

People often ask us why we built the creation museum and the ark in northern Kentucky. Say, Kentucky? Why'd you build it there? It's the center of America. Do you realize we're within a one-day drive of two-thirds of America's population?

Do you know that interstate 75, and if you look at this piece of property, the Lord allowed us to get 800 acres at this interchange right here. That's interstate 75, the second busiest north-south interstate in America. And 800 acres right here, we put the parking here, moved 1 million cubic yards of dirt for the parking, and then half a million cubic yards of dirt for the arc over here, because in Kentucky you've got the rolling hills in Kentucky. Just as well we didn't have to clear the Smoky Mountains, that'd be a lot more. But we were able to do that there and the museum is 45 minutes from here on Interstate 275.

And we used the cubits in the Bible and we used a cubit of 20.4 inches. There's different sized cubits, there's a reason we used 20.4 inches, we think it's more likely to have been that sort of cubit that Noah used, but we got research about that on our website. So 300 by 50 by 30 cubits comes to 510 feet by 85 feet by 51 feet. So to translate that for us, one and a half times the length of a football field, half the width of a football field, from ground level, and it's built 15 feet off the ground, in fact we took the ground down about 25 feet, moved half a million cubic yards of dirt, and then it sits on concrete piers and all those piers go down four feet into solid limestone, so the entire Christian facility sits on the rock, which I think is very fitting. From ground level to rooftop is seven stories, from ground level to the top of the bow is ten stories.

And when you come to the ark, many people don't realise it's often, we have rent, I think right now we're probably buying every electric wheelchair that exists in America. Because, we get a lot of the older generation coming and then they go down there and they realise you've got to walk one and a half times the length of a football field. So by the time they get to the second they call up guest services, can we have an electric... So, it's an incredible facility. 3.3 million board feet of timber and we had Amish craftsmen come.

You know what's interesting? When I stand back and look at it, I remember when I first met, found out about the biggest timber frame structure in America at the time in Indiana, the architect that designed that, he grew up in the Amish and Mennonite community, He was an expert at designing timber frame structures, which is post and beam construction with the heavy timbers and built as vents like slices of bread and a big loaf. He introduced us to the Amish crews that built the biggest timber frame structure at that time in Indiana and I gave them the vision for the Ark and one of the Amish guys stood up and he looked at me and he said, you know, I believe God has been preparing us all these years just for this. And they headed up the Amish cruise to build the timbers frame structure and then we had to find a mill, there's only one CNC machine in America that's the right size, then we had to find the timbers and this mill had the ability to find those timbers and then God brought all these people and all our designers and sculptors and all these people together, hundreds of people and then 43, 000 families, you stand back and you realise this is an incredible miracle because God had to bring all these people together at this time for this to happen this is not something that Disney could step out and do as I was walking through the arc with one of the heads of the secular media, he looked at me and he said, this is one of the big media giants in America, he said, you said this was the quality of Hollywood.

I said yeah, he said no, no, this is beyond Hollywood. He said besides which, the wood is real. So we call it Ark Encounter because we want people to come and encounter with Noah's Ark and doing so have an encounter with God's Word and doing so have an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, let me show you this little video here. We have a 4, 000 space parking lot which we don't need to use all of that right now because 4, 000 space parking lot means we could take 16, 000 people and we've got to build more things on the outside before we get those sort of numbers.

So we have 11 shuttle buses take you on this ride for those that have been there. You'll know that you're going on a mile shuttle ride and then we come up the hill and you see that arc is just mind-blowing. I hear the kids saying, wow. In fact, I asked the kids, what do you think of it? And they say, it is big.

In fact, these days, it is huge. So you can see it is a massive structure. One of the heads of the community in northern Kentucky and he's one of the leaders in the northern Kentucky community, he's not a Christian, I took him there and as he got up close to it he looked at me and he said, I never knew Noah's Ark was this big. And then he looked at me and he said, you know maybe Noah could have fitted all those animals on board. See right there it's witnessing to him right there.

And of course we have exhibits that deal with that. And yes we have zip lines. You can go across the valleys and across. People have said to me, why do you have zip lines at the Arc in the museum? We're the biggest and best zip line course in the Midwest at the museum and this will be nine miles of zip lines when it's finished.

And you know my answer? Because Christians can have fun too. And we have a company that puts them in for us because they love our ministry and that's their expertise. And you know what? It's a family friendly facility.

So you can come instead of going to a pagan facility where you wonder about what kids are going to read and see, you can come and have fun at a Christian facility. So it is a phenomenal facility. We have a 1500 seat restaurant. I don't know of another restaurant that big in America and you can see the incredible structure here and the ramp. The ramp is used for special parades and other things that we will be designing.

And then inside just to give you a little bit of a look, public don't walk up the ramp, they come in at the back. But just to give you a little glimpse of what the exhibits are like inside here. And you can see we come up to the one door here, and that's one of the favorite exhibits. I'll tell you about that in a moment. And so we have exhibits dealing with who was Noah.

Three floors of exhibits, teaching exhibits, themed exhibits, the bottom floor is lots of cages. If Noah's loaded the Ark, there's lots of sculpted animals, you could spend, you spend as long there as you want, you just walk through the whole thing and look at it, or even Noah's living quarters, we have that there, the attention to detail is outstanding. You will not see anything that I know of that I've ever seen anywhere in the world like this, of this quality. And then even the structure itself, when you look at those massive timbers and look down the ark, that in itself is an exhibit as well. And it's really like five attractions in one.

Each floor is like an attraction. And then the ark is an attraction and then the timber structure is an attraction and then behind the ark we also have a zoo and a petting zoo because we have a lot of teaching dealing with the kinds that Noah didn't have to take species on the ark, for instance zebras and you know we have a zorse and a zonkey, zebras, donkeys, they're all the one kind, the horse kind. And alpacas and llamas and camels, they're all the one kind, the camel kind. And so we explain all that, that speciation is not evolution, no one needed far fewer animals than what people realize. I tell you, people just, when they read that, they say, wow, I never thought of that, wow, that makes sense, and it's helping them understand, you see, this is true, this really happened.

And of course we present the Gospel clearly. The research we had done by America's research group said 1.4 million minimum up to 2.2 million, a little different to what the secular researchers said to the government, 325, 000 a year. And Our research for the Ark indicates as well that it's going to double the attendance at the Creation Museum from 300, 000 a year up to, well more than double, to 700, 000 a year. Here's the interesting thing, Ever since the ark has opened, the museum attendance has doubled, in fact more than doubled. And just to show you some weekend attendance here, and there's been some bigger days even since this, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, weekend attendance here for, from when it opened up until, what was that, up until part way through October and of course there's been more days since then.

This is a 10, 000 weekend, 14, 000, 14 and a half, 18, 000, 17, 000, you get the idea? And October, we thought October would be low because everyone's back at school. We got bus tours pouring in from all over America. In fact, we had one bus company just tell us next year from March to October they're going to have four buses at each of the Creation Museum and the Arc three times a week through the whole of March to October and they said it's the most popular tour right now and they've already sold hundreds of tickets. That's just one company.

So it's an incredible outreach. There's a top daily attendance for the ARC encounter, just on a day basis. We've even had bigger days than that in October. And as of October 18, the total number of visits to the ARC and the museum was 550, 000. Actually it's up over 600, 000 right now, number of visits to the Ark and the Museum and we're on target to not only do the minimum of 1.4 million for the year but we think it's going to be closer to the 2 million because next summer is going to be much much busier, we can tell that even from the group bookings.

So it's incredible to see what God has done. And you know, one of the things that we do at the Arc, one of my favorite exhibits is the door exhibit. And This is where people love to get their photographs standing there at the door, the door to the ark, because it's a reminder that Jesus is the door, one door in the side of the ark. See, think about it, the cross is the greatest symbol of the message of salvation, but other than the cross, Noah's Ark is the greatest symbol of the message of salvation and the reason I say that, God told Noah to build an ark, put one door in the ark, he told Noah's family to come into the ark And because of what was going to happen, the judgment, God sent the animals, two of each kind, seven of some, the representative land animal kinds on board the ark. The reason we sculpted all the animals for the ark is because we didn't want to use any of today's animals because they're species that are developed from those that were on the Ark.

So we had to make the ones on the Ark. You'll recognise, well that's a bear and so on, you'll recognise the kind but you'll say it doesn't look exactly like what we see today and that's exactly what we wanted. Noah the Bible says was a preacher of righteousness even building the ark was preaching but you know what no one listened and we don't know how long Noah took to build the ark we don't believe the hundred and twenty years there in Genesis is how long it took to build the Ark. That wouldn't make sense to us. We believe that's the time until the flood would come because when God spoke to Noah, he had sons who had wives.

When Shem got off the Ark, he was about 99 years old. So it might have been a number of years we don't know how long I think it was a number of years because 1 Peter 3 says God was long-suffering in the days of Noah and I think he gave plenty of warning to the people. Nobody else came, so you know what God did? That worked. Let me do it again just to make a point.

And God shut the door. You weren't ready for that, were you? And then the flood came. It left a smark all across the earth. Millions of kids are being told every day that the fossil record is a result of millions of years of evolution.

Most of the fossil records are a graveyard of the flood. A reminder God judges the wickedness of man but a reminder God provides salvation. God's son stepped into history and said I am the door by me if any man enter in he'll be saved and you know that door to our ark the Lord Jesus Christ is still open and while that door is open should not we be doing the best that we can to get people to the ark and that's what we want to do we want to get people to the door we can't force them through the door it's only God that takes them through the door but we can get them to the door. The world is doing all it can to drag your kids and others away from the door of the ark. We need to get them to the door and you know the Bible tells us that in these days and we're in the last days, we are in the last days, we've been in the last days ever since God's Son stepped into history to be the God-man.

So we're in the last days, we just don't know how last we are, we just know we're more last than we were, and we're more last today than we were yesterday but it tells us in the last days there's going to be scoffers and the scoffers are going to reject creation and they're going to reject the flood and we see that today. The scoffers that reject creation and reject the flood. By the way, we had scoffers when the Ark opened. There's a group of local atheists, they protested the Ark opening. And they even held up all sorts of placards and they spread all sorts of untruths about us building the arc based on tax dollars.

Do you know how many tax dollars we've received from the government so far? Zero. The rebate on sales tax we generate in our facility, We don't even get the first check to probably the end of next year on that. That's because we generate all this new money and we create all these jobs. But it's interesting that one of the scoffers held up this placard here, had a picture of Noah's Ark as a bathtub with giraffe sticking out the chimney about to sink in it.

Does anyone get the idea I hate those? And it says this fable won't float. And you know what my challenge to all of us is? That's the point. When you come to the Ark, we have the Fairy Tale Ark exhibit, people, there's just a number, we have over 300 children's books we've bought from Christian bookstores that all have Noah's Ark looking like a bathtub ark about to sink at any moment.

And the atheists are out there using that against Christians saying this fable won't float because they want kids to say, see Noah's Ark, it wouldn't float, look this stupid little Ark, that's why when kids come and see what the real Ark looked like, they, Wow, it's so big. It wasn't a bathtub arc. That's why in this exhibit here we have a little message to people. Here's the serpent, if I can convince you the flood was not real, I can convince you heaven and hell are not real. See people, that's the whole point.

You know what we've done? We've allowed the culture to impact our churches and our books and our kids instead of us impacting the culture. And there they are with lies telling us, built on hate and your tax dollars. Not one tax dollar was used in building the ark. And if you don't want any of your dollars used in building the ark, do not come and pay admission or buy anything in the gift store.

And I wanted to show you the protesters because I want to make a point here. They were there on July 7, half of them were Christians witnessing to them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was July 7, the opening to the public. On July 5, we had supporters there for the opening of the ark.

And I want to make a point to you. They're a minority. They're a small minority. Can I say that? They're a small minority.

And yet, It's that sort of minority that controls the education system and the courts and the politics. People, if God's people started standing up out there, stop being intimidated by the culture, stop being silent, what an impact we could have on the culture and you know in 2nd Peter 3 it goes on to say but don't forget this one thing is because in the last days people gonna say he hasn't come back I mean it's been 2, 000 years he's not got I've been 2, 000 years where is he he hasn't come back ah but to God the days like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. By the way that has nothing to do with the days of creation. I tell you the number of Christians I get in churches, oh well the Bible says a day is like a thousand years, aren't the days in Genesis a thousand years or something, you know, couldn't they be long periods of... That's when I say, Lord please don't let me punch them in the nose.

This is in the context of the second coming, you can't use a phrase in the New Testament to determine the meaning of a Hebrew word anyway, and what's it saying? To God, because God's outside of time, he's not limited by natural processes and time, to God a day is like a thousand years, a thousand years is like a day. You think two thousand years is a long time, it's not a long time to God, you know what? He is long suffering, not willing that any should perish but all should come to repentance. What do we read in 1 Peter 3?

When once the divine long suffering waited in the days of Noah. That's why I believe it might have been a number of years in Noah's days he built the ark because God was long-suffering. And then Peter goes on and says this, and this is what I want to close with here, Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, goes on to talk about just as surely as God created, just as surely as there was a flood, there's going to be a coming judgment next time by fire. That's the final judgment. Just as surely as all these things have happened and will happen, what manner of persons ought you to be?

It says beware lest you also fall. There's a warning for us. The world wants you to fall. The devil wants you to fall. The devil and the world is doing all it can to get God's people to fall.

And you know what? It's been very successful as so many have compromised God's word, particularly in Genesis these days. And we're losing the coming generations from the church. And so I want to give you four of my favorite scriptures that really deal with what we should be doing. 1 Peter 3 15 always be ready to give a defense, an answer.

The word answer, defense comes from the Greek word apologia from which we get a word apologetics. One of the things that I've said over and over again, what's missing from our churches and homes is teaching people how to defend the Christian faith. That's why we have all those books there, that we have where those other resources are. It's in a different building, I'm sure you know where it is. Jude tells us to contend for the faith, contend earnestly for the faith.

People, are we really contending for the faith? Contending for the faith is not just, well, I'm going to go to church on the weekend and well, contend for the faith. Be like Nehemiah. We can do something about this. Let's stand up.

Let's be like Noah. Let's do something. It's a battle. We need to be in the battle. There's my question to you, what are you doing to contend for the faith?

What are we doing? We need to preach the gospel and make disciples, I put them together. That's what it's all about. There's no point in building an ark and building a creation museum to convert people to believe in creation if we don't see them trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. So we are bold in presenting the gospel message and we know that faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God and so we're bold about that.

And then I like I like the parable of the 10 minas in Luke 19, because in giving this parable, resources were entrusted to people and then he said, do business till I come. And I've met many people in today's culture as I've traveled around in churches and I've had them come to me and say oh things are getting so bad I feel so depressed you know it's overwhelming the secularization of the culture there's nothing we can do we just need to pray Jesus comes back again. And they say to me, you know, don't you get depressed looking out there? And you know what my answer to them is? My answer is this, what are we told there in Luke 19?

We're to be doing business till he comes. What's the business of the king? The business of the king is not his will that any should perish. Go into all the world and preach the gospel. And so I look at that and I say, we can easily look around us and get depressed and overwhelmed by the secularization of the culture, the stupidity of this election and what's going on and the media that seems to be controlling everything.

But you know God is sovereign. He raises up kings. He's in charge and you know what he told us to do? You do business till I come and you know what we need to do? So you know what my answer to this is?

You look around, you get depressed and so on. Do you know what I think we should do? What? Build an ark, build a creation museum, produce materials, Bible curriculum, books, DVD's, go out there and preach and teach. You know what we need to be doing?

The most important message in the world is the message of salvation in the universe. There's no more important message than that. That's what we need to be on about. And I say to all the young people here, do business till he comes. We can do that.

And the old people. We can get out there and we can do what the Lord's called us to do. Be prepared to go wherever he wants you to go. Be prepared to do whatever he wants you to do. I remember, well I would be, I'm trying to think now, would be about 55 years ago.

Wow, that's a long time. And I was a little boy, really a little boy, really a really little boy. I just had a birthday this past week and I turned 59 plus 6. My wife tells me to get over it. She says, go on say it.

Anyway, I tell, well, anyway. But when I was 10 years old, when I was 10 years old, my parents had run a program and had missionaries, a missionary from open air campaign has come, a little country town in North Queensland and They used to start Sunday schools and do this all across the state of Queensland where my father was transferred as a teacher in a country where less than 1% of born-again Christians, they were very bold for their faith and did what they can to win people to the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know one of those meetings that they arranged, the missionary had a challenge. Who wants to be a missionary for the Lord? Go wherever he wants you to go, do whatever he wants you to do.

And I went forward at 10 years old to be a missionary for the Lord. I found out later, my wife is two years younger than me, and so I tell her that she's going to be 70 minus 7. And so I found out that she was only about eight years old and she didn't grow up in a Christian home like I did but her parents sent her to Sunday school and there was a similar challenge to them at Sunday school and she said Lord if you did that for me and died on the cross for me I'll go wherever you want me to go, I want to do whatever you want me to do." And then the Lord brought us together. And we didn't know we'd end up in Kentucky. And look what the Lord has done.

And that's why I challenge us. I believe Noah was like that. He did all that God commanded him to do. He was willing to do whatever God wanted him to do. Totally committed to the Lord.

That doesn't mean he was perfect as we see after the flood. None of us are. He was a frail human being just like any one of us, but he was a great man of faith. He's in that Hebrews 11 chapter. And my challenge, are we willing to...

I tell you what, it's dangerous when you do this. When you say, Lord, I really am 100%, not 99%, not 99.9%, but 100% willing to go where you want me to go and do what you want me to do. You know why it's dangerous? Because he'll take you up on it. And who knows what God has in store for all of you.

For more messages, articles, and videos on the subject of conforming the church and the family to the word of God. And for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where you can search our online network to find family integrated churches in your area, log on to our website, ncfic.org.